Telephone service providers of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) have been offering caller identification services that utilize the signaling system seven (SS7) protocol for many years. Since the early 1980's, various interactive voice response (IVR) technologies have been developed to use the caller identification function provided by SS7 to determine the originating line from which a telephone call was made. However, caller identification services only provide the telephone number from which the telephone call was initiated and the name(s) associated with the telephone number if the subscriber allows the telephone phone number to be listed. In order to determine who is calling, an IVR system or human customer service agent, must ask the caller to identify himself or herself.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved system and method for identifying telephone callers.